Sage Pay predicts a billion pound cyber bonanza weekend

This weekend, online spending in the UK is set to approach £1.5 billion* as consumers hit the shops to do their Christmas shopping, taking full advantage of the upcoming sales.

The spending starts on Friday, with online shoppers capitalising on the Black Friday sales. However, online consumer expenditure will then peak on the first Monday of December (1st). Traditionally known as Cyber Monday, this is the single busiest day of the year for online retailers. Sage Pay predicts that this year, online retailers will take just over £600 million in 24 hours** as website visits hit 125 million.

Sage Pay data highlights 12pm (noon) as the busiest time of Cyber Monday, as it has been for the past two years.

“With just four weeks until Christmas, Cyber Monday is traditionally the day when consumers rush online to do their festive shopping,” said Simon Black, CEO at Sage Pay. “With record online spending predicted for Christmas 2014, including Cyber Monday, it’s never been more important for small businesses to be online. Preparation should start with making sure your website and payments systems are optimised for the high volumes of traffic experienced on Cyber Monday.”

Since 2009, the total value spent on Cyber Monday has increased by over £250 million

The volume of transactions has increased by an average of 11.25% over the last 4 years

Between 2009-2013 there has been an increase of almost 200,000 transactions. Last year, Sage Pay correctly predicted that UK shoppers would hit the half a billion mark on Cyber Monday alone. In fact, Sage Pay research shows that the total amount spent by UK consumers on Cyber Monday grew by 15% year-on-year in 2013.

“This expenditure growth is a direct result of increased UK consumer confidence in spending. As the UK’s economy begins a period of upturn after suffering during the 2008 recession, we believe that this confidence will continue into the Christmas period,” explains Simon. “It also directly correlates with the diversification in new online payment methods we’ve seen this year”.

Ranjit Singh, Commercial Director at art materials stockists and Sage Pay customer Cass Art, said: "At Cass Art, we realised that we were missing out on serving a huge customer base across the UK by not being online. This was significantly restricting our sales opportunities, particularly around the Christmas period. Our site went live just before Cyber Monday last year and we were surprised by the huge increase in sales - we saw our transactions rise by over 100%!"

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About Sage Pay

Sage Pay is Europe’s leading independent payment service provider (PSP) and is one of the most trusted payment brands. Every year Sage Pay processes billions of pounds worth of secure payments for its 50,000+ customers and makes the process of accepting payments online, over the phone, or in person simpler, faster, safer and more profitable for businesses.

Sage Pay is a subsidiary of FTSE 100 business management software and services company The Sage Group plc. For further information please visit: www.sagepay.com

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* Estimate based on a 10% increase on last year’s value of transactions over the period 29th November – 2nd December 2013

**Estimate based on a 10% increase in transactions according to Sage Pay’s data on spending of £558 million in 2013